Recent developments in wireless telecommunications have ushered in a new era of mobility. The advent of cellular and personal communications services has enabled people to maintain communication from virtually any location. Further, advanced technology has facilitated not only wireless voice communication but also wireless data communication, such as the ability to communicate over computer networks and to send and receive video and other content.
Wireless communications systems have existed for many years. In general, a wireless communications system uses mobile or fixed radios that communicate with a fixed radio tower that is in turn interconnected to a larger telecommunications network. Such systems can take a variety of forms. For example, traditional cellular communications systems provide radio coverage to a wide area, such as a city, through use of many radio towers. As another example, wireless office systems typically use 5 to 20 small radio base stations to offer radio coverage in small areas such as a school campus or hospital building.
Typically, subscribers to wireless service are equipped with one or more wireless terminals or “client devices,” which may take any of a variety of forms. By way of example, a wireless client device may be a telephone, a pager, a computer, a personal digital assistant (“PDA”) or any combination of these or other devices. A wireless client device may be configured to receive and/or convey information such as voice and data (e.g., fax, e-mail and other text messages) and/or other media (e.g., audio, video and graphics). Further, the client device may include input and output facilities such as a touch-pad, a keyboard, a camera, a display, a microphone and/or a speaker. Some client devices are equipped with web browsing software to allow subscribers to communicate with web servers over the Internet. Similarly, a client device may include logic to receive incoming data packets from a network, to assemble the packets in sequence, and to depacketize and decode the packet data so as to retrieve the underlying media signal.
In traditional wireless telecommunications systems, geographic areas are split into smaller areas called cells. The size and shape of each cell is defined by the range of a base station or radio port established by a wireless service provider at the core of the cell. Client devices are adapted to communicate over an air interface with these base stations, switching to the frequencies or codes of various cells as they travel from one cell to another. In addition, cells may be split into even smaller areas called sectors, by use of directional antennas or other technology.
Wireless networks and mobile wireless devices may use a number of channels to transmit and receive information, and a properly equipped wireless device can initiate communications by sending an initiation request message over one of these channels. Applying industry standards, the initiation request message may include a code that characterizes the requested communication as packet-data communication, as compared with traditional voice communication.
Despite the many recent advances in wireless networking and communications, a variety of deficiencies still exist in the art. As one problem, wireless networks today occasionally experience inadequate transport bandwidth. For instance, video transmissions require substantial bandwidth. Accordingly, when multiple users each request transmission of video content over the network, there may be inadequate network resources available to deliver the requested video content. With the proliferation of wireless users and available content, the problems associated with inadequate bandwidth will be exacerbated over time. Accordingly, there is a need for improved transport mechanisms for efficiently delivering content to client devices over a network.